National fire strategy needed

Dennis Davis of the Fire Sector Federation provides background to the recently published national fire strategy paper.

As featured in the October 2022 issue of F&RM, the Fire Sector Federation (FSF) recently published a white paper calling for a wider discussion to create a national fire safety strategy that goes beyond current legislative proposals. The Developing a National Strategy for Fire Safety document sets out a possible pathway for the fire sector and government to work together to create a safer society from fire.

The proposals were developed by a new FSF Fire Safety Strategy Board, with leadership and expertise drawn from across a diverse range of sectors including, fire safety, fire and rescue, construction, insurance, and building control. The Federation believes that the UK needs to think afresh about fire safety and, in doing so, make better use of the collective knowledge, expertise, and understanding that exists to create a fire safe society.

The UK currently lacks a holistic fire safety strategy because the prevailing aim too readily seeks to reconcile and compromise, rather than take forceful action to achieve a clear objective. A new holistic strategy is therefore needed to offer coherence, and guide policy following diagnosis of the weaknesses and analysis of barriers that are preventing greater success.

As part of the Fire Protection Association's continuing commitment to increase fire safety awareness across the built environment, a number of informative feature articles are available to read on our website.?You can read the full article here.